Ilan Pappé, "The Idea of Israel"

An hour-long interview with Ilan Pappé on his book, The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge.

Since its foundation in 1948, Israel has drawn on Zionism to establish its legitimacy, and in particular to justify its savage oppression and frequent massacres of the indigenous Palestinians. In this groundbreaking new work, Ilan Pappé traces the continued role of Zionist ideology. The Idea of Israel shows how Zionism operates in Israel's education system, media, and cinema, and the uses that are made of the Holocaust in supporting the state's ideological structure.

Pappé examines the way successive generations of historians have maintained the historic framing of "Nakba" or Catastrophe of 1948 as a "liberation campaign." This foundation myth was publicly unquestioned in Israeli society until the 1990s when the New Historians movement, of which Ilan Pappé was part, arose to challenge the official history. The Idea of Israel is a powerful and urgent intervention in the war of ideas concerning the past and future of the Palestinians and the state of Israel.

Ilan Pappé

Ilan Pappé is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the UK. His earlier works include Ethnic Cleansing in Palestine, and Gaza in Crisis, co-authored with Noam Chomsky. The New Statesman noted, "Along with the late Edward Said, Ilan Pappé is the most eloquent writer of Palestinian history."

Outrage: Pig Who Killed Freddie Gray Walks Free!

Freddie Gray

For the “crime” of making eye contact with a Baltimore cop and then moving off the scene, Freddie Gray was illegally arrested. By the time the pigs were done with him, they had cut his spine and put him on his death bed. And the court set totally free the main accused cop.

We talk to Carl Dix about this outrage. Carl Dix is a founding member of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), USA, and an advocate for Bob Avakian, his leadership and his visionary new synthesis of communism. Carl Dix and Cornel West co-founded the Stop Mass Incarceration Network (SMIN), and Rise Up October.